Day 17 – We reach the Adriatic – Sezana to Piran

Just arrived!
    

It was another cool start to a sunny day.  Breakfasts on this trip were a highlight.  The fare available each day was very similar but I tended to have a large breakfast and a small lunch.  This time as we were leaving breakfast I had the first negative encounter with anyone at our hotels during the eleven days of cycling.  We had taken to grabbing a piece of fruit and making up a roll with some of the ingredients at breakfast.  I was making up my lunch when an officious woman came up to me and said that they do not allow food to be taken from the restaurant.  I acknowledged her concern and said I am riding 60 kilometres today and it is a public holiday.  She didn’t continue with the request and I wandered away with the lunch.   Graham was really worried but still got his lunch and hid it from the very severe woman.  She seemed to have been patrolling the breakfast area all through our time of having breakfast.  I love those events as they make it memorable. 

It was our last day in the saddle and we had about 60kms to ride.  For the first time we also had a deadline to meet in Piran because our bikes were being picked up that afternoon. 

The notes said there was the historic Lipica Stud Farm on the route which took us through the farm.  The horses are called Lippizzaner and as we found out they are white.  However, it is not just a stud farm it is an entertainment package that includes carriage rides, a hotel and riding activities. 


The lippizzaner horses

It was interesting to see a couple of herds of these pure white horses.  They looked quite impressive but I don’t know anything about horses so I can’t comment any further about them. 

Soon after leaving the farm we went through the border again into Italy riding along a main road for little while until we were turned through a small town and followed a busy secondary road for a while before turning into a quiet country lane that took us through some woods for a few kilometres.  We missed our turn and almost followed a mountain bike track until we figured out this was not the way to go. 

Muggia in the background 

One of a number of tunnels on the cycleway into Muggia

We found the turn and we cycled along a very busy cycleway that took us to the city of Muggia which is next door to Trieste.  We got some great views but we had to be rather careful given the number of hikers as well cyclists on this fast track which had been an old rail line. 

We stopped at a caffe/Bar for a coffee in a less affluent part of the city.  It was not at all touristy and I think we were looked at with some interest. 

It took us a little while to get through Muggia and then we were climbing again on a cycleway.  We were getting a little hungry as we approached Koper (back in Slovenia again)  There was a nice promenade in front of the Adriatic and seats where we were able to sit and watch the people promenading along the waterfront.  It was very pleasant.  We even treated ourselves to an ice-cream. 

More of Koper

Leaders of Slovenia in Koper

On her way back from looking more closely at the Adriatic

It was then back on the bikes to ride the last few kilometres to Piran.  I think being a holiday weekend and the sunshine had brought everyone out to walk and ride along the cycleway between Koper and Piran.  It was very picturesque.  Finally, we were on our last climb and downhill run before getting into the new part of Piran.  We still had to negotiate lots of people strolling in the cycle lanes.  Before we knew it we were in the Piran town square taking photos of our arrival. 

First sight of Piran from our cycleway - about ten kms to go

The next challenge was finding our hotel.  That proved to be rather difficult as the app showed a way to get there but we could not figure out where it was.  The accuracy of the app at times was lacking.  Fortunately, the lovely man who was picking up our bikes helped us find it. 

Somewhere up there was our hotel

The hotel was amazing.  More on that in the next post. 

We had cycled 63.5 kilometres that day and climbed around 450 metres.  In all we cycled around 290kms.  I could not have done that ride on a regular bike as the climbing would not have been possible due to the length of the climbs and the gradients.  It was a great ride but we did not see many of things that were suggested in our trail notes.  Often we would not have had time. I looked at our riding time and often it was only about 3 hours but we rode all day punctuated with coffee breaks, photo opportunities and of course lunch.  I would do it again in a heartbeat.  We all felt much fitter than we did when we set off down the Moselle.  In fact the Moselle ride was good preparation for the more strenuous riding we did through the alps. 

Steeper than it looks


Muggia through the telephoto lens

 

Comments

  1. Susan13 May 2026 at 02:17

    So many kms! Very impressive. It’s been an inspiring trip

    ReplyDelete

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